


Varric's Story he'd never tell. (DA Prompt #6)

by fireinthered



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Drunk Hawke, Storytime with Varric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 19:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29987697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fireinthered/pseuds/fireinthered
Summary: A grand story (lie) about why his crossbow is named Bianca.Requested by DRAGONBORN228





	Varric's Story he'd never tell. (DA Prompt #6)

Once again, unknown the number this week, Hawke was drunk in between jobs at The Hanged Man, spilling his secrets out to his trusted friend, no other than the famed storyteller Varric. The only man he trusted not to steal from him in Kirkwall as shifty as the man was. A loud hic started his sentence, as he had swallowed air so much previously so it was inevitable at this point. 

“Vaaaaric, how do you have some many stories ready to go? Are you...Are you secretly a book enchanted to be a dwarf?” Hawke’s eyes were huge and he began to whisper as if he’d figured out Varric’s big secret. “It’s okay, I won’t tell anyone. Well, probably Fenris. But no one else! I swear.” 

Varric couldn’t help but laugh at the poor man drunk off his ass. “Okay, I think it’s time for someone to go to bed in their nice warm estate for the night.” He took the half-empty mug he was weakly clinging to with his fingertips. 

“I’m not finished with that, dear sir.” Hawke laughed, he was absolutely wasted far more than he should’ve been. 

“I gotta get you home before you end up sleeping here.” Varric stood and equipped Bianca onto his back. Who knew he’d be the babysitter of the group. He assumed it’d be Merill, with her kind nature and naive mindset. 

Varric paid the tab and forced Hawke onto his feet. This was going to be a fun walk home. 

On their way to Hightown, Hawke couldn’t keep his mouth shut for a second. “Varric, my dearest pal, would you be the kindest Dwarf I know and tell me one of your stories?” Hawke drunkenly batted his eyes to be more convincing than his stumbling body was in this situation. 

“I suppose a short story for the road won’t hurt.” It wasn’t like Hawke was going to remember any of this in the morning anyway.

Varric had many stories he could tell, a true one or one completely fabricated. The second option sounded like to be the right choice here. “I know you’ve been asking to hear this one for a while, do you want to hear why I named my crossbow Bianca?” 

Hawke gasped, ending in a loud hic. “The story you’d never tell? Don’t let me hold you back, go ahead!” 

Varric thanked his quick wit he was good at coming up with quick lies that are believable. “Where to start...You should know, Bianca isn’t just a name, it’s a woman. A woman who was so quick and swift, none who were after her ever caught her. They were always leagues behind her.” 

“Was she a rouge?” Hawke had seen Dwarven rouges around Hightown, so it didn’t seem unlikely. 

“A rouge?” Varric scoffed. “Bianca was more than just a rouge,” This is where Varric’s story became a real story. “Bianca was a Spirit of Trickery made from the Stone. The one and only of her kind, unmatched by all other spirits.”

Hawke was immersed at this point, as drunk as he was, he was paying his utmost attention to the story. 

“I’m sure you’re aware spirits are all about possession and whatnot, but ol’ Bianca? Oh... She just wanted to have fun, a good ol’ jester of a gal. If someone wasn’t fooled out the last bits of gold the night wasn’t over yet.” Varric chuckled, he was going to have to remember this one.

Varric continued to go on and on about little tricks she did to the Dwarves of Orzammar. Some tricks of harmless jests, some with a few lives lost here and there. Reaching Hightown, as drunk as Hawke was he didn’t want to let Varric go. 

Hawke was clinging to the Dwarf. “You can’t leave me yet! You’ve yet to tell me of how you two met!” Hawke’s voice was far too loud for someone outside in Hightown when the time was nearing 2am. 

“Fine, fine. But you need to keep your voice down.” Begrudgingly he was more likely dragged into the Hawke Estate. 

Hawke dragged Varric all the way up to his bedroom. He was tired, but he wanted to continue the story as well. Hopping into the bed, still fully clothed he faced the Varric standing in the doorway. 

Hawke smiled, drunkenly. “Please do continue.” 

Varric sighed, taking off Bianca and sitting in a nearby chair next to the bed. “Alright, where did I leave off? Right…” He really hoped this story would knock out Hawke, he didn’t have another one planned after this one. 

“Bianca. I met her when I was still able to do trades and such in Orzammar, the merchants enjoyed buying the items Bartrand and I would find and buy them for a high price. As usual, when Bartrand was talking to the seller went to the nearby Tavern, to see what they had to offer of course. When I arrived there, there was talk all around about a spirit who was playing tricks on everyone they could and they needed to be dealt with. It was quite a big problem.” 

Hawke sat up on his elbows to listen to Varric, though the sleep was getting to him now that he was in the bed. 

“Seeing that if I volunteered to get rid of this spirit, I could be paid handsomely, I wasn’t really thinking about the consequences on the way there and decided to accept the bounty on the spirits head. No harm, no foul.” Varric took off his boots, to get comfy with this storytelling. “After finishing my drink, I went back to Bartrand and told him about the infamous Bianca, blah blah and knowing Bartrand he didn’t believe a word I said, smelling the alcohol on my breath.” 

“But you still went after her, right?” Hawe interrupted, nodding off here and there. 

“If you stop interrupting, maybe you’ll find out. Anyway, as we continued our runs to merchant to merchant I began to feel something off as if someone was following us. Keeping my senses alert, no doubt we were being followed. ” Varric knew his stories all had to have some sort of twist to them to pull the reader in. 

“At the time, I just had a normal crossbow, nothing special at all. Keep that in mind. When we’re going back to our rented room before heading out the next day, I realized my crossbow was gone, completely removed from my back and I didn’t even feel it. Petty thieves were not shaken in Orzammar, but one to steal something as the size of a crossbow with no effort was very skilled indeed. Being pretty skilled myself, I was sure I could steal it back too. Unless it was stolen by a Carta, but that’s a whole different matter. “

Hawke was now laying on his back, eyes slowly blinking to stay awake. 

“I searched everywhere, the Tavern I went to, near the Deep Road entrances, dark alleyways, and I found not a trace of anything recent enough to have been used hours or minutes ago. Disappointed and stumped, I pulled over to clear my frustrations, write out a few of my thoughts-as writers do- and lingered around a bit.” Varric was impressed with himself; he was telling this out of his ass. 

“I’d say maybe an hour or even two I was hit with a crossbow arrow, right in the shoulder. It didn’t hit anything vital, but it did hurt like a bitch. Seeing that I was alone at night and just been stabbed, no doubt someone was trying to kill me to loot my corpse. Not accepting my death this way I pulled out one of my hidden daggers and prepared to fight for my life, there was no honor in dying just to get it over with. “

“I called out to them, “Whoever is there, know that’ll bring a good fight to the table, and if I win an even better story out of this moment!” To make sure they knew that I wasn’t going to be an easy kill for them.” 

Hawke was barely still awake at this point, it would be good to start to wrap up the story so this poor man could sleep.

“What came forward, after I had stood my ground was a beautiful dwarven woman, who was holding my crossbow, still aiming it at me with full confidence. And then she began to speak to me.” 

“What’s your name, brave one?” The dwarven woman scoffed at Varric, walking closer but keeping a safe distance. 

“Varric Tethras, merchant and storyteller. Am I going to be graced by the name of my attacker too?” Varric could feel the pain from where he was shot still bleeding, staining his clothes. 

“Varric, huh? Kinda a basic name, don’t you think? Not a Cadash type?” She joked with Varric, lowering the crossbow. 

“Varric rolls nicely off the tongue, and Tethras comes with money. I think my name is pretty great, to an extent.” Varric knew the game of casual yet dangerous talk and he was one who would gladly oblige to it. 

“I see...My name is Bianca, I’m sure as long as you’ve been here you’ve heard of me by now? I’m a pretty dangerous individual.” Bianca swirled the crossbow. 

“The things I’ve heard about you, I’m impressed you could make that much of a title for yourself here without having a viable warrant for your arrest. Could it be that you actually are a spirit?” 

Bianca laughed, a short snort added at the end. “A spirit? I do like the myths people have been spreading about that. Maybe I am, maybe I’m not.” 

“Are you willing to tell me which one you are?” Varric was slowly getting impatient with these games, but also wasn’t, something about Bianca made her alluring. 

Bianca tossed back his crossbow, which seemed to have been altered by magic in a blink of an eye. “I don’t know, find me when you find out.” Bianca threw down what seemed to be like a smoke bomb to hide her path she fled with. 

“I guess I’ll have to find her again.” Examining his crossbow and seeing it had been altered with magic, he knew she had to be a spirit. 

Varric looked over at the now snoring Hawke. “He’s definitely not going to remember this one when he wakes up.”


End file.
